A History of Greece, Volume 1

Publisher's Summary

A History of Greece is the thrilling story of the rise to power and influence of the greatest civilization the world has ever known. As Cyril Robinson's exquisite narrative unfolds, we find ourselves plunged into mankind's greatest and most magnificent adventure. The story begins in Minoan Crete, but quickly shifts to a dimly understood mainland culture. We follow the heroic deeds of the Mycenians and the Trojan War, the glorious artistic and intellectual triumphs of the Ionians, the turmoil of the Doric invasion and resultant dark age, the slow recovery culminating in the epic Persian wars and the renewed splendor of Periclean Athens. In the fifth century B.C., philosophy, literature, art, and architecture reach a pinnacle in Athens which no civilization has ever equaled. But civil strife soon follows and eventually embroils all of Greece. This is Volume 1 of A History of Greece. Don't miss Volume 2.

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Customer Reviews

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To get the most out of this book...

To get the most of this book, you need to have a good map of Ancient Greece and the territory surrounding the Aegean Sea. Keep it handy. Also, it will be helpful to understand what the Isthmus and Acropolis are, look them up before hand.

The narrator was the same as in the book "Hannibal, One Man Against Rome" and he was so good I followed him to this book. I was NOT disappointed. The book started out slow and it wasn't until chapter 5 that I really took interest. It was amazing that, despite all the wars that were fought between their city-states like Athens and Sparta, Greece gave rise to experiments in democracy and serious philosophical and scientific inquiry.

The level of detail in this book can make it hard on the history novice. Despite that, someone new to Greek history can gain a lot by reading this book.

I always knew that Greece was important to western civilization. Now I have a greater idea why. Practically every strongpoint and every weakpoint of democracy was confronted and worked out in Greece. Listening to the two volumes of this wonderful reading by Charlton Griffin, by the way, I can see how a civilization's success, greater success and finally a pinacle is followed by decline, mainly caused by refusal of its citizens to be responsible to their own country.

As an aside, I found an interesting viewpoint on Socrates--He really did corrupt the youth of Athens. While Socrates is my hero in all of ancient history (he is still entirely accessible, by the way), Athens was on a downslide morally and politically during Socrates'lifetime. Socrates proved the Gods were wrong or didn't exist, and that most people didn't know what they were talking about, anyway, about virtue and ethics.

Well Socrates was a very ethical man, but those who listened to him, the younger generation, were not. So Socrates in effect gave them a license for personal corruption and irresponsibility which furthered the decline of Greece.

Greece was important in the Middle East, Rome, the Italian Rennaisance, the United States (our Founding Fathers like Hamilton, Jefferson and John Adams).

I never want to forget to acknowledge another great reading by Charlton Griffin. He does carry along many history books I would not have cared enough to listen to, but I can always take on faith I would like a reading by Mr. Griffin.